[Short Stories] - [Insider] - ...

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
STAR WARSIN CHANGING SEASONS.PART I.GUARDIAN OF THE PEOPLE.by Timothy ZahnThey came out of nowhere as Obi-Wan Kenobi flew his Faraway-class scout ship high above the wide expanse of checkered fields: three battle droids on STAPs, firing their twin blasters at him for all they were worth, the droid socket behind Obi-Wan, the scout's R3 unit gave a electronic yelp. "I see them," Obi-Wan soothed him, throwing power to the aft shields and wishing fleet ing!y he had his usual Aethersprite starfighter instead of a sensor-loaded spotter ship. Still, two years of warfare had taught him how to deal with STAPs, and the scout ought to have enough power to puii this off. "Hang on," he warned the droid and pulled back hard on the control bar.The noise of blaster impacts cut off abruptly as he stood the scout on its tail and shot upward, leaving the STAPs far behind. Maneuverable though they were, the little droid carriers didn't have nearly the climbing capability to match a maneuver like this. Obi-Wan continued starward for another few seconds, then shoved the control bar forward, flipping the scout into a futi-power dive.It was a stunt he'd first seen Anakin pull severai months ago, and he'd taken the brash young Padawan to task about it afterward. The younger man had countered with the unassailable logic that, first, he'd survived and, second, the trick had worked. Since then he'd used it at least three more times, with the same record of success.Anakin would be highly amused if he ever found out Obi-Wan had tried it himself. Fortunately, Anakin was a dozen light-years away. Stretching out to the Force, Obi-Wan added power to the dive and closed in for the kill.The droids saw him coming, of course. One of them leaned his STAP backward, trying to bring his blasters to bear on the ship screaming down on him from directly above, while the other two shot off in opposite directions as they tried to get out from under the dive.But no defensive programming in the galaxy could compensate for the STAP's basic design limitations. The first droid wobbled violently, nearly toppling backward as its center of mass moved too far away from its antigravity projector. The other two, running now with their blasters pointed the wrong direction, were in equally fatal postures. And neither programming nor design could take into account the accuracy of a Jedi gunner with the Force as his ally. Three bursts from the scout's laser cannon, and the droids and their STAPs had disintegrated into flaming rubble.Pulling back on the control rod, Obi-Wan leveled out again, wincing a little as he watched the smoking debris rain onto the ground below. From the large neat patches of stubble he could see all over the plain, it was clear the farmers were starting to bring in their crops, and chunks of twisted metal and plastic were not something their massive harvesting machines were designed to deal with. "At least we now know for sure that the Separatists have a base here," he commented to Arthree. Lifting his gaze from the ground below, he looked thoughtfully around the horizon.It was about as unspectacular a landscape as he had ever seen. The farmland stretched as far north and south as he could see, squares of tan and brown and dark yellow dotted with widely scattered clusters of farm buildings. On the horizon to the west, a low ridge of gray mountains cut across the view, running north to south. Another, much closer set of cliffs rose along the east, paralleling the first range. A little ways to the southeast, the monotony of the second set of cliffs was broken by a gushing white-water river that emerged through a narrow gorge in the rock, washing violently into the valley and slowly calming as its banks widened and it turned toward the north. An intricate network of irrigation canals led away from the river, providing water for the entire valley. In the distance near the northern horizon, the towers and buildings of a modest city could be seen nestled up against the riverbank.R3 gave a questioning warble. "No, I don't see anything, either," Obi-Wan said. "Let's see if we can get them to faunch another attack." Taking a deep breath, he dropped the scout's nose downward, leveling out barely thirty meters above the ground and slowing to a crawl.Alternating his attention between the horizon and his sensor displays, he stretched out to the Force.He felt a warning flicker and twisted the control rod hard. But it was too late. With a thunderous concussion and a screech of metal, the scout's starboard wing exploded, sending shrapnel careening off the cockpit canopy and sending him into a twisting drop toward the ground.He pulled hard on the control rod, his free hand darting across the board as he tried to key in the emergency backup systems. But he was too close to the ground, and there simply wasn't enough time. A forest of tan-colored stalks shot up in front of him, and with a violent jolt the scout slammed hard into the ground."What do you mean he went on ahead?" Anakin Skywalker demanded, glaring at Task Force Commander Fivvic as the tall Barabel stood beside the deck officer's desk. The deck officer, for his part, hunched diligently over his datapad and pretended he wasn't there. "Who told him he could do that?""Two points, Padawan Skywalker," the tall Barabel replied stiffly, and Anakin could sense the reflexive anger of his species stirring beneath the surface. Barabels were highly respectful of Jedi, pathologically so, in Anakin's opinion, But that respect didn't always translate to Jedi-in-training, particularly not when the Jedi-in-training was criticizing a full-fledged Jedi Knight. "One: As a command-rank officer, General Kenobi needs no one's permission to carry out his duties as he sees fit. Two: With you and your wing of the survey team delayed, he thought his time would be best utilized by beginning the scouting."Unfortunately, both points made sense. "Fine," Anakin conceded. "How soon can we go after him?"Fivvic half turned to look at the scout ships scattered around the hangar deck, Anakin's Jedi starfighter off to one side looking like a strange cousin at a family picnic. "You took a beating out there," the Barabet said. "Some repairs can wait. Others must be made before we can leave."Anakin took a deep breath, trying hard to cultivate the patience Obi-Wan was always on his case about. "How soon?""Three days. Possibly four."Anakin felt his throat tighten as he watched the maintenance team moving purposefully among the damaged scouts. Three days. An eternity, particularly in the middle of a war.Still, Obi-Wan was a Jedi Knight, and there were only rumors that the Separatists had moved into Dagro in the first place. There was a fair chance that the rumors were wrong and that Obi-Wan was wasting his time looking.So why was Anakin getting an uncomfortable tingle up his spine?"I presume," Fivvic went on with only a trace of sarcasm, "that four days will be acceptable?"Gently, Anakin stroked his mechanical right hand. "Make it three," he said, "and you've got a deal."Slowly, Obi-Wan drifted back to consciousness, with a dark sense of disorientation and an even darker sense of urgency. Carefully, not moving, he eased his eyes open ...To find himself gazing into the faces of a young boy and an even younger girl."There," the girl said, rather smugly. "See? I told you he wasn't dead.""Okay, fine," the boy grumped. "So he's not dead. Yet.""Hopefully, not for a long time," Obi-Wan agreed, looking past the two children and trying to orient himself. He was half sitting, half lying in the middle of a patch of broken and flattened grain stalks, his back partially propped up against something hard and metallic. Off to his left he could see the crumpled nose of his scout and could smell the acrid scent of burning plastic. "Did you two get me out of my ship?" he asked the children."Dad did that," the boy said, still sounding a little miffed that he'd been wrong about Obi-Wan's condition. "He went to get the cart to get you out of here.""A cart?" Carefully, Obi-Wan turned his head to look up over his shoulder, wincing at the twinges from his neck. He was leaning against the side of one of the harvesters he'd seen working the fields, one of the massive catches of the bin dumper sitting directly over his head. "Couldn't he have used this?""He could if he'd wanted to wreck all the sargheet between here and the house," the girl said with exaggerated patience. "Are you a soldier?""He's not a soldier, he's a Jedi," the boy put in before Obi-Wan could answer. "See? He's got a lightsaber."Obi-Wan looked down to see the end of his lightsaber peeking out from inside his tunic. "Actually, I'm both," he told them, tucking the weapon back out of sight. Getting his hands beneath him, he started to push himself up.And stifled a grunt of pain as agony shot through his right leg. "I don't think you ought to do that," the girl said. "Dad said you probably wouldn't be able to walk.""Dad was right," Obi-Wan said, easing himself back onto the ground. "My name's Obi-Wan Kenobi. Who are you?""I'm Kit Swens," the boy identified. "This is rny sister, Zizzy. This is our farm you crashed into.""Sorry about that," Obi-Wan apologized, searching the sky within his field of view as he stretched out with the Force. There was no sign yet of a foilow-up attack, but it could come at any time. "If we don't want to damage any more of it, we need to get me out of sight," he added, trying to look around the side of the harvester. "Arthree?"There was no answer. "Dad said your droid looked dead," Kit offered.Dead, or else gone dormant. Republic scout droids were designed to do that, ... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

filmowka.pev.pl